E239 - Iran and the End of Restraint w/ Trita Parsi and Akbar Shahid Ahmed

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

History, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Subscribe now⁠ to skip the ads and get all of our episodes. Danny and Derek are back with a two-part episode on the war with Iran. First, they speak with ⁠Trita Parsi⁠ of the Quincy Institute about the Trump administration’s decision to go to war, the belief that assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei would cause the regime to implode, the structure and failure of pre-war negotiations, the influence of Israeli officials and hawks, the potential for sending in ground troops, and the impact on Iranian society. They then speak with ⁠Akbar Shahid Ahmed⁠, Senior Diplomatic Correspondent at HuffPost, about the erosion of rules of engagement, the alignment of U.S. and Israeli military strategy, congressional inaction, compliant allies, and whether any realistic off-ramps remain. Read Akbar’s piece ⁠“Trump Says He Brought 'Justice' To Iran. His War Boosts Fears The U.S. Has Gone Rogue.”⁠ Keep up with Quincy’s work at ⁠Responsible Statecraft⁠ and ⁠Always at War⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to American Prestige. To listen ad-free, you can subscribe at AmericanPrestigepod.com. Find the link in our show notes.
0:11.0	My name is Sherlock Holmes. It's an unusual name. Introducing Young Sherlock, a new Guy Ritchie series.
0:18.5	What's game I would claim today? Discover the origins.
0:21.2	It's leaving.
0:21.8	Those days are truly behind me.
0:23.5	Of crime's most iconic mind.
0:25.6	There has been a break-in.
0:27.9	Astoned.
0:28.8	You should be a detective.
0:30.1	Starring Hero Finds Tiffin, Donald Finn and Colin Firth.
0:33.7	If you start wearing a hat like that, I will no longer be friends with you.
0:37.1	Young Sherlock, new original series. watch now only on Prime Video. Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome to I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade, Derek Davidson.
1:10.1	And we're very excited to welcome to the podcast today.
1:12.4	Trita Parsi.
1:13.2	Trita is the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
1:18.3	And he is the man with the plan when you want to know about Iran.
1:21.5	But before we get into it, everyone, please, we've been doing a series of specials on the war in Iran. So please check that out at AmericanPestigepod.com. Again, that's AmericanPestepod.com if you haven't yet. Treata, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Great to be with you guys. So obviously really grim times. And there's a lot to really talk about. But the first thing that I did want to ask you is, what do you think was going on in the administration?
1:48.7	I know you have contacts in D.C., and what do you think led to this, what from many perspectives,
1:56.0	seems to be a very wild decision to go to war with Iran?
2:00.2	I think bottom line is that Trump was convinced
2:03.7	that the Iranians were much weaker than they actually were. He was sold the story and
2:10.7	narrative by Netanyahu that, you know, this regime is about to fall. All you need to do is push
	...

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